About Jenesis Mercedes

“When you do something from the heart, you don’t need a title” -Jenesis M.

I was born in Brooklyn, NY. However, I moved to Dominican Republic when I was barely 6 month of age. I grew up and was raised by grand-parents, who put the world at my feet and more. I never missed anything in my life but I never got everything I wanted either. If I wanted something I had to work for it, which if you are a 10 years old you do not even know what that means.

But soon enough I learned what it meant and how privileged I was. When I was in 7th grade the middle school I attended (Private school) every year did Basket donations filled with must have essentials for new mothers with no resources on Mothers Day. Previous to that, My Grandfather used to bring food baskets to poor areas of our country with his job. All this ignited something in me I did not understand at the time.

By the time I got to high school (the rebel years) I fell in love with reading. Fell in love with Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. Which to this day are still my two favorite books and with that I discovered that I knew nothing about life at all and there was so much out there. Now like many people the question of what I wanted to go to school for became more often and serious and the more I thought about it the less I knew. I would have a different career choice every other week. No one could understand why I couldn’t make up my mind and naturally the comments of choosing a career that would “make me good money” were always so present.

I have always been a creative person, so naturally most of my decisions were inclined to that department. Even after I graduated I moved to NY and start college with the same indecision, always switching majors in my head to make sure I chose the right one when the time came. Then I took my first marketing and psychology classes and that was it, that is what I wanted to do. Have the power to connect and identify trends and peoples behaviors was fascinating to me and I later came to find out that I was GREAT at it. But life happened and I got pregnant before I was able to finish school. Liam was born when I was 23 and I realized that I need a more serious job because bills were adding up. I got my first job in Sales Marketing, flew to California for intensive one week training and was making more money than I ever had made in my life. But my manager saw I was “Too Nice”, why? because I did not have the heart to lie to people and cheat them into spending thousands of dollars on marketing strategies they did NOT need just to meet a quota.

So we were back to square one and a second child on the way. I got my second job in marketing and after only 3 months in the job my world was rocked like never before. Liam was diagnosed with traces of autism and severe speech delay. So I am torn between income or my son and after a few months eventually it came to the point that I was once again having to figure out how to make an income while still being a mom and beyond that having a child that needed a little more attention and guidance.

I started my own business doing handmade designs (invitations, party favors, custom apparel, etc) and did great. I used my knowledge and experience and combined it with my understanding of my audience and who I wanted to serve and why and it transformed my life.

But as time kept going by it wasn’t enough as people kept approaching me and asking me how I did it. I realized how much I enjoyed showing and helping other people realize the things I did. Build strategies based on their why’s and where there end goal is and helping them get there. But I wanted to do so much more, I didn’t want to offer a service I wanted to change people’s live. I didn’t want to make an income, I wanted to build a legacy.